Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Professions by Class or Race

With absolutely no consideration given to the profession bonus, do you feel as if some classes or races seem more connected with a profession than others? Something like this is all opinion based of course but I always felt that certain classes and/or races seem more suited for some professions than others. As if they just seem like a natural fit.

I'm going to go over the main professions one by one and give my opinions on which classes and races I believe seem like a natural fit for them. This is not a list of suggestions on what professions you should take if you are new. But it will show what are some practical professions to have based on class, if you feel so inclined.

Engineering:

Lets start with the most obvious of obvious professions when it comes to what races I feel fit them best. There is a profession specialty of gnomish engineering and one of goblin engineering, so guess which two races I tend to feel are natural fits for this profession. Of course, undead and worgen. Just kidding of course. Engineering goes hand in hand with gnomes and goblins.

Not only does it share a name with them depending on the specialty you take but look through the game at who is often the ones building the next best thing to blow crap up. Yeap, it is our friendly neighborhood psychopaths the gnomes and goblins.

If warcraft ever moved into the future where technology became more prevalent you could be absolutely certain that it is only a matter of time before either the goblins or gnomes create something that will turn all self aware super computer on us and try to take over the world, killing us to protect us from ourselves like in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep".

Of all the professions I would say none tie itself better with a race than engineering does with goblins and gnomes. It is a marriage made in an electronics shop.

As for classes, there are no classes in the game I feel have a natural connection to engineering. If I were hard pressed to have to choose one class that I think would best first engineering it would be a rogue. This is because I could see a rogue trying to use any advantage they can to further their thieving ways.

Skinning:

For the topic of race by itself skinning seems to connect itself with worgen, due to the radical ability to skin faster. As for classes, the only real class I can see being a natural for skinning would be a hunter. It only makes sense that a hunter would skin the things he hunts.

At another level I could see trolls as being another race that I connect with skinning. Their tribal nature, sacrificial history and ability to live off the land would make sense that if any race would skin animals for clothing, housing and other uses the trolls would be the ones that would do it.

Mining:

As far as races go I connect dwarves and orcs most closely with this physically demanding gathering profession. They both seem like laborer races with strong upper bodies that would be ideally made for this type of physically demanding collecting.

More so with dwarves for a second reason. Based on their in game desire to explore and discover it would seem reasonable to believe that excavating, which is like mining, would come natural to them. Even if the blood elves also seem to have that love of digging for treasure, I do not feel the connection to mining with them as they do not seem to have the body shape that would make them effective at doing such.

There are no classes I feel are really connected to mining as a class but if I were hard pressed to choose one I would have to go with a warrior. The reason for this would be that I picture a warrior as the most basic of classes and as such I think they would be the type that adapts and tries to take care of their own needs. I could not put it past them to always be on the lookout for something that would make them more resilient and if they could find some new ore that would make them stronger armor I could surely see them stopping to mine said ore.

Herbalism:

Well, just as worgens skin, tauren herb. It is just who they are, there is not much else that can be said about that. It is a natural fit for the tauren race to collect herbs because they are better at it than all other classes. You get better at things from doing them, and if we are talking what is a natural fit the race that is the best at doing it because they did it more than others has to be the natural fit right?

I also feel as if the night elves would be a natural herb gatherer. They seem like the type of race that would rely on the land for many things and those things would include herbal remedies. To make such remedies you would of course need to be an herbalist.

When it comes to classes it would definitely not be a surprise to many if I were to say that druids seem to connect best with herbalism in my opinion. As I believe both taurens and night elves are natural herb gatherers and both those classes were the only (original) ones that can be druids it seems to fit well. But it was never an issue of druids are herbal gatherers because the two classes that could be them are, they would still have that feeling on their own.

It is the class that throughout the game sends us on quests to gather herbs to treat the land, the creatures, and what have you. There are countless times when we are gathering herbs for the druids which leads me to believe that the druids themselves are interested in herbalism or or too lazy to do it themselves so they send you which still means they are interested in herbalism but smart enough to find someone else to do the work for them.

Leather Working:

Read skinning. Anything said in skinning fits for leather working, that is for sure. The two professions go hand in hand. But there is one other factor when it comes to leather working that adds some things to it and that is the fact of what it makes. It makes leather and mail gear.

With that in mind, any class that wears leather or mail seems to be a perfect fit for leather working. Hunters, shaman, druids, rogues, and monks all wear either leather or mail and so they seem to fit, logically, with classes that would have leather working.

Blacksmith:

Just like leather working and skinning go together, mining and blacksmiths go together. Classes that wear the items that a blacksmith would make would be the most natural fit to become a blacksmith. Being they make plate a warrior, paladin and death knight are the obvious ones that would take the profession and feel like it were a natural fit.

Tailor:

While being a tailor does not have an associated gathering profession tied to it, as anyone can collect cloth, the fact it makes a certain level of armor lends itself to being a natural fit with certain classes. Most noticeably those that wear cloth armor even if all classes could benefit from the bags they make. Priests, mages, and warlocks are the ones that get their armor from it and as such are the natural fits.

Oddly enough however, there is one race I feel connected with tailoring no matter what their class is. That would be the blood elves. Do to their light frames and the fact they come across to me as the type that would be very concerned about how they look tailoring become a good choice for them, natural even. This would mean being a tailor to make their own fashionable clothing, instead of just armor, makes a great deal of sense. Almost as if it were a natural fit for them.

Jewel Crafting:

To me the draenei come across as the natural jewelers. Something about them just screams, to me at least, that they value the finer things in life, the shiny goodness that jewels offer would be very attractive to them. They also, even if their size might seem to give a different impression otherwise, seem to be a very delicate race. A good jewel cutter would need that as a quality. A steady hand and a gentle touch can turn a lump of a jewel into a treasured piece that will be admired for many years to come. Unless of course a rogue steals it and sells it to finance his poison habit, but that is another story.

Alchemy:

Like the other two professions that were tied to a gathering professions alchemy goes hand in hand with its gathering mate of herbalism. Anything that holds true for herbalism holds true for alchemy when it comes to classes and races that seem connected to it in some way.

Alchemy however does have another set of races that seem to fit it, even if they do not fit the herbalism profile as I see it and they are gnomes and undead. You thought I was going to say gnomes and goblins didn't you? I almost did, but goblins do not have that mad scientist feeling about them that gnomes do. Goblins seem to blow things up by accident whereas gnomes seem to try to do it on purpose, like a mad scientist. I can see gnomes using their alchemy skills in conjunction with their engineering skills to bring a quick end to the world. Remember, these are the people that irradiated their own city.

The undead fit the alchemy profile as well from the mad scientist perspective. While the classes and races I feel connected with alchemy from the herbalism angle all seem to have the best intentions in mind the undead have the worst intentions in mind. I can not get the image the game puts in our heads of undead after undead making potions and concoctions that can do various different things and none of them good. See the plague for an example of alchemy gone wrong if you want to see a strong undead connection to the professions and just one of the reason it feels like a natural fit.

Inscription:

Another profession tied to herbalism but without the connections to herbalism like alchemy has. While I can see all herbalists being alchemist I can not see all, or any, herbalists being scribes. Scribes, like jewel crafters, need a gathering profession to support it but are not connected to it, in my mind.

I can see the thinker races being the races that would be scribes. Namely draenei and blood elves. They come across more as the thinkers and less as the doers and as such seem more likely to be the ones that would put quill to parchment and create the things scribes create. Some might think of other races as more fitting of the thinker role and I would guess that perhaps you might consider those to be more likely to be scribes.

When it comes to classes that I can see naturally connected to inscription the only one that really jumps to mind is the mage. Mage seems like a thinker class. They can already conquer up mana cakes, teleport themselves to various places around the world, and create a gem on a whim. So having them put down some words that would grant a buff, an ability or modify something that exists already just by reading it and speaking a few words aloud, a mage is the one that would write that.

Enchanting:

The act of enchanting or disenchanting seems to be something of magical ability and as such I see classes that use mana, and thus magic, to be the most fitting classes to use enchanting. Someone that uses magic would just seem a natural to do some mystical enchants or disenchant something to dust at the wave of a hand. It would be a much more natural fit than say, a rage user doing those magical things.

Of all the races (the original ones) the only one I have yet to seem to fit into any profession are those pesky humans. This however, is a profession that calls out to them. Enchanting seems like trying to game the system, to make yourself better without actually getting better, or taking the short cut. Is there anything more human then trying to game the system? I think not. Of all the races the human seem to be the one that would be most likely to want to sit back and let someone else do the work, or in this case, let the enchants do the work. If a human could enchant the armor to fight for itself, they would, so enchanting seems a very natural fit for them.

Do you ever feel that certain classes or races are connected to a profession as if it were natural for them to have it? I always felt that some professions just fit certain things better. Like every priest I have is an enchanter and a tailor. It just makes sense to me.

4 comments:

Orcs have seemed to me like a natural fit for engineers. I don't really know why.

The intense patience, the care needed to polish and craft and make a jewel shine. Jewelcrafters are paladins in my book. Also a good match for Draenei and Blood Elves.

Inscription never had a good fit in my mind until MoP. Monks are scribes. Maybe this is just an Asian stereotype at work, but when I think of somebody sitting in front of a bowl of ink with a piece of paper and quietly making a few strokes of the brush... I think of monks.

The one sync up between professions and class that doesn't naturally flow, but should is warlocks with skinning/leatherworking. It has looked like such a great fit to me since the beginning that I wondered why warlocks didn't upgrade to leather at 40 back in Vanilla. Stripping your enemies down in both soul & body. Using their spirit to attack your foes. Protecting yourself in the flesh of the enemy. Seems very warlock-ish to me.